| 1979 |
1979-01-27/02-13 |
CELAM III (Puebla) — John Paul II's opening address (28 January) warns against 're-readings' of Christ as political revolutionary while affirming the defense of human dignity; the conference document consolidates the 'preferential option for the poor'.[1] [3] |
| 1983 |
1983-03-04 |
John Paul II reprimands Ernesto Cardenal — As John Paul II arrived in Nicaragua on 4 March 1983, Culture Minister Cardenal knelt to greet him; the pope wagged his finger and admonished him to 'regularize' his situation with the Church — an image emblematic of the Vatican's clash with priests in the Sandinista government.[4] [5] |
| 1984 |
1984 |
Cardenal suspended a divinis — Ernesto Cardenal is suspended from priestly ministry under John Paul II for holding government office.[6] |
| 1986 |
1986-04-09 |
John Paul II's letter to the Brazilian bishops — In a letter dated 9 April 1986 to the Brazilian Episcopal Conference (CNBB), John Paul II writes that — developed in fidelity to Church doctrine and the two recent CDF Instructions — 'the theology of liberation is not only opportune, but useful and necessary' ('la teologia della liberazione è non solo opportuna, ma utile e necessaria'), a passage cited by the movement's defenders.[7] |